WASHINGTON — The attention London receives this summer is sure to include the kind of glossy public relations usually associated with hosts of the Olympic Games.

But that Olympic veneer has little to do with why we should care about London in the first place, which is why we are lucky the Folger Shakespeare Library here has chosen to add its quiet, studied voice to the season’s festivities with its exhibition “Open City: London, 1500-1700.” We should care, the show suggests, because of a more profound role London has played in world culture by shaping ideas of what a great city can be…

Gun accuracy, if anything, was even worse than supply. In 1870, HMS Captain, Monarch, and Hercules fired at a ship-sized rock off Vigo, Spain, during a practice run of six minutes at a range of 1,000 yards. It was calculated that, of the twelve rounds that these three ironclads managed to get off (about one every 2.5 minutes, which was about the best rate that a well-trained gun crew of the time could achieve), one would have scored a direct hit and one an indirect hit. Had the target been a moving ship, there was a good likelihood that all of the shells would have missed altogether…

HMS Flora (1893): decommissioned in 1922; HMS Flora was the subject of a famous salvage operation after running aground in 1903. In 1914, just prior to the World War I, the Flora was placed on the sale list and remained on harbour service for the majority of the conflict. In April 1915 Flora was renamed TS Indus II. She was sold on 12 December 1922 and was broken up at Dover.–wiki

“The illustration shows the tugs Roods Zee and the Zwarte Zee taking in tow an enormous floating dock, capable of holding vessels up to 7,000 tons, from Wallsend-on-Tyne to Callao, Peru.

To tow so unwieldy a thing as this for any distance at all is a pretty severe tax on a tug ; but to take it all the way to Peru on the west coast of South America is about the utmost test which the most severe critic could ever impose. The distance is 10,260 nautical miles.”

The Portland is a historic shipwreck in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The S.S. Portland was built by New England Shipbuilding Co. in 1889 and sank in the Portland Gale of 1898 off of Cape Ann, killing 192 people.more

Penguins surround the wreck of The Gratitude, 1911

In Antarctica

We’ve seen the fantastic colour photographs of Shackleton’s Endurance in Antarctica, 1915, but they only skim the surface of photographer Frank Hurley’s work in Antarctica. Between 1911 and 1932 he visited the continent six times, accumulating stunning captures of landscapes, people, animals, and expeditions. Today, a selection….

Shipwrecks on Macquarie Island:

Macquarie Island has more than its share of shipwrecks. The first was recorded in the first official report of the island, in the Sydney Gazette of 18 August 1820, which read …Captain Smith saw several pieces of wreck of a large vessel on this island, apparently very old and high up in the grass, probably the remains of the ship of the unfortunate de la Perouse…”

A Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter biplane aircraft taking off from a platform built on top of HMAS Australia‘s midships “Q” turret. more

Australia’s ship’s company had consistently suffered from low morale since the battlecruiser entered service, and the proportion of Australia’s sailors who were placed on disciplinary charges during World War I was among the highest in the RAN. Factors which contributed to low morale and poor discipline included frustration at not participating in the Battle of Jutland, high rates of illness, limited opportunities for leave, delays or complete lack of deferred pay, and poor-quality food. There was also the perception that Australia’s British personnel were being promoted faster than their Australian counterparts and were dominating leadership positions.

Representatives of the ship’s company approached Captain Claude Cumberlege to ask for a one-day delay on departure; this would allow the sailors to have a full weekend of leave, give Perth-born personnel the chance to visit their families, and give personnel another chance to invite people aboard. Cumberlege replied that as Australia had a tight schedule of “welcome home” port visits, such delays could not even be considered. The next morning, at around 10:30, between 80 and 100 sailors gathered in front of ‘P’ turret. Australia was ready to depart, but when the order to release the mooring lines and get underway was given, Cumberlege was informed that the stokers had abandoned the boiler rooms.

After the assembly on deck, some sailors had masked themselves with black handkerchiefs, and encouraged or intimidated the stokers on duty into leaving their posts, leaving the navy’s flagship stranded at the buoy, in full view of dignitaries and crowds lining the nearby wharf. Naval historians disagree on what happened next…

HMS Bulwark is an Albion-class landing platform dock, the UK’s newest class of amphibious assault warship and built in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. Numerous delays caused the delivery date to be put back, with the ship entering service in December 2004. In October 2011 she became the Flagship of the Royal Navy.

The ship is designed to send large numbers of troops and vehicles to shore as quickly as possible. The rear of the Bulwark opens and floods a compartment, allowing the boats inside to be launched.

Following the outbreak of the First World War, Bulwark, along with the rest of the squadron was attached to the Channel Fleet, conducting patrols in the English Channel. On 26 November 1914, while anchored near Sheerness, she was destroyed by a large internal explosion for the loss of 736 men. Two of the 14 survivors died later in hospital. The explosion was likely to have been caused by the overheating of cordite charges that had been placed adjacent a boiler room bulkhead.

HMS Bulwark (1860)was previously the planned 110-gun first rate HMS Howe. Already obsolete when launched, she was never fitted with all her guns and was renamed Bulwark in 1885 when she became a training ship. She was renamed HMS Impregnable in 1886, and then HMS Bulwark again in 1919. She was sold for breaking up in 1921.

above:Specimen: Juvenile live bay scallop Argopecten irradians. The ultimate goal of this research is to help restore scallop populations in Rhode Island

below:Specimen: Live coral Goniastrea sp., known as green brain coral. One full polyp in the center is shown with four surrounding polyps. Walled corallites are purple. Technique: Phase contrast illumination. (James H. Nicholson/NOAA